E-drug: Comments to Mr Bada Pharasi (cont'd)
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Dear Mr. Pharasi,
The South African Medicines Regulatory System Review team made
significant comment that communications under the current Medicines
Control Council were found to be deficient in many respects.
What does emerge from your summary of events surrounding the Review
is that with equal force the same criticism can be applied to the Ministry
and Department of Health. The speculative linkage between the Review
recommendations and the Virodene affair would not have arisen if suitable
publicity had been given to the system review commencing with its
conception and followed by relevant progress updates.
In the absence of such information it is more than understandable that
such public perception arose given the chronological coincidences that
exist, namely :
- The Virodene issue climaxes in December 1997, Review Team is
established in January 1998. Given these and coupling them with the
unfortunate choice of language used by the Review Team
- "The present Medicines Control Council (MCC) should cease to exist" -
only served to reinforce the speculation.
Don Black
South Africa
don@dbn.lia.net
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